


a revelation, some kind of resolution

by petalprose



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Drinking, Gen, Light Angst, Other, ambiguous timeline, and aziraphale does Not like that, crowley accuses aziraphale of trying to discorporate him, who needs an apology bouquet when you can just rip a flower from a public space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:35:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25526791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petalprose/pseuds/petalprose
Summary: Aziraphale says, “Thank you for the flower.”Crowley says, “Ahhgrhyyeaaahgk.”It’s very intelligent. It’s mortifying. Crowley feels as though he is a giant gob of gelatin moulded in the approximate form of a demon. Has he just handed Aziraphale a wilting flower? Has Aziraphale justaccepted?Maybe he's drank enough to pass out. Crowley pinches his leg. No, he's still awake. He’s… he’s really just handed Aziraphale a flower. That is a thing he has done.Crowley thinks, distantly, that he wants to scream.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 85
Collections: Holly Jolly July: a Good Omens Gift Exchange





	a revelation, some kind of resolution

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sivan325](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sivan325/gifts).



It’s been an awful day and an awful night, and Crowley has been in this low-quality bar for the past five hours, and he is planning to stay drinking for five more. Alas, his plans are dashed as soon as he looks up and sees none other than the Principality Aziraphale, standing at the entrance and scanning the interior.

Crowley ducks his head low, taking a hearty sip from his mug while he’s at it, but it’s no use. The angel finds Crowley and stops next to his table.

“Hello, Crowley,” says Aziraphale. Crowley doesn't bother wondering if Aziraphale is happy to see him or not. “Fancy seeing you here! I popped in for a visit myself after hearing from a reliable source that Agnes Nutter’s book of prophecy might be held by a descendant in the area, but, ah…” he smiles, a nervous thing, and lays a hand on the back of the chair next to Crowley. “Look at me, blathering on. Would you mind if I had a seat? Only I’ve been on my feet all day, and—”

“Whatever, doesn’ make much of a difference to me,” Crowley cuts him off. “Come to… to, what, to gloat?”

Aziraphale frowns. Crowley seems to have caught him off guard with the question, and he doesn’t take the chair next to him. “Ah, beg your pardon?”

Some distant, cognizant part of Crowley is aware that he is being unfairly hostile, right off the bat. That Aziraphale isn’t single-handedly responsible for the mess the continent is in, no matter how much his Head Office may benefit. But he’s consumed a lake’s worth of alcohol, and he’d desperately hoped it would be enough to take him to blackout drunk and he’s on the edge of it, so he says, “Y’know, since, since all this mess’s good… Good for your Head Office, isn’t it?”

“Well,” says Aziraphale, tone irritatingly level, “I’m sure my side isn’t benefitting any more than yours is.”

“Oh, sure, sure,” says Crowley, taunting, “ _Ssssure._ ‘m sure the souls headin’ down to the, the pitchforks’ll be _real_ glad, to know that ‘n equal amount of them’s head’n to the _pearly gatesss.”_

Aziraphale’s mouth twists and he glances from side to side. He leans down. “Crowley, please keep your voice down. You don’t know who may be listening.”

“Let them listen,” Crowley says bitterly. “Anything’s better than the screaming. Fuck.” He screws his eyes shut and downs the rest of his drink in one go. Impressive, that. He’d altered it to be just about bottomless.

“Crowley.” Aziraphale lays a hand on his shoulder, touch feather-light. “You are going to cause a scene. Would you sober up?”

Cause a scene? Cause a _scene?_ The world around them is falling to shit, and Aziraphale is concerned about causing a _scene?_ Crowley will sober up the day god’s forsaken rainbow will _mean something._ It occurs to him that he has not seen Aziraphale for quite some time, that there is some awful truth to his statement about both their sides gaining from the chaos. Perhaps Aziraphale has been sent to Crowley’s location to even the playing field. At the thought, Crowley’s mood sours even further. Of _course._ Because his day just needed something to add to the misery. “Oh? Why’s that, you want me to know what’s coming, do you? Face it with dignity, ‘s that right?”

“What are you _talking about,”_ says Aziraphale, brows furrowed. Crowley thinks he might be upsetting the angel. “Crowley, sober up.”

There’s a hard edge starting to creep into the angel’s voice that makes Crowley’s better sense shrivel into nothingness, that his drunk mind takes as confirmation of his baseless suspicion. “Don’t want t’ dissscorporate an inebre—erbi…” he shakes his head. “A drunk enemy, do you?”

Crowley gets a good look at his face, which doesn’t help him in anyway; he can’t accurately tell what Aziraphale is feeling. All he knows is that the angel is displeased with him.

Crowley is hit by a sudden rush of anger. The angel is displeased with him? He should’ve been so at Eden, saved Crowley the fucking heartache. “Come on, angel, just go ahead and say it,” he snaps. “Our sides are _benefiting equally,_ ‘course Heaven would want you to discorporate me, makes sense, doesn’t it?” It doesn’t occur to him that perhaps he is the only one it makes sense to.

“ _Discorporate you—_ Crowley, where did you hear that? Did the archangels come down? Did—”

Crowley barrels on, disregarding Aziraphale’s apparent confusion. This is the most coherent thought he’s had all evening and he’s latched onto it. “Oh, but of _course,_ you wanted to give me a _fair fight,_ ‘s that it? Wouldn’t do to sully the holier-than-thou image, would it?”

“Crowley, I’m not here to _discorporate you,_ would you _please—“_ Aziraphale cuts himself off, frustrated, and hauls Crowley upright wholesale. His hand is warm where it grips Crowley’s elbow; Crowley gives an undignified squawk on the way up. “Crowley, you aren’t being fair to me. I haven’t heard a single word about this. Where did you hear about that? What’s this about a fair fight?”

Crowley’s brain gets stuck on the words Aziraphale repeated. “Humanity isn’t giving itself a _fair fight_ , Aziraphale, and you’ve got the gall to come here and get me to sober up just so that you can have a clear conscience when you smite me? _Fuck off,”_ he snarls.

Aziraphale drops him. Crowley had gotten up in his face at some point, and he is still irrevocably plastered; he’d been leaning a lot of his weight on the angel. Now that Aziraphale’s let go and taken a step back, Crowley stumbles, and just barely stops himself from flopping face down on the floor.

“I did not come here for you to put words in my mouth,” says Aziraphale, shoulders drawn together and tight, and Crowley can’t read his expression. He doesn't need to to tell that he's made the angel upset, however. “I only came to see how you were doing. I apologize for my mistake.”

Crowley is not too far gone to realize he has, to put it lightly, screwed up. The angel turns and leaves. Crowley watches him go, feeling bereft for only a moment before a cold dread begins seeping in. What’s just happened here?

Someone from the next table whistles. “Gonna take about a dozen bouquets to make that right, mate.”

What had happened? Oh, god. No, _Someone,_ what the Heaven had he just said? Reality crashes down on him, swift and unforgiving, and Crowley is forcibly made aware of his mistakes. He’d been so sure, in the moment, that Aziraphale had come to take him out. Why had he thought that? Aziraphale hadn’t even _said_ anything.

‘I only came to see how you were doing.’ Blessed saints. And Crowley had practically spat fire at him.

Aziraphale’s already gone through the doors by the time Crowley manages to scrape his brain cells together and form a coherent thought. He sobers up in one step, decides to keep the headache as penance in the next, and then he’s off; pushing through the doors and calling Aziraphale’s name.

Outside, Aziraphale hasn’t gone far. Crowley stops a few paces away from him, talking to his back. “Angel, angel, ‘m sorry. I didn’t mean”—Aziraphale does not stop walking and Crowley’s voice pitches higher—“ _wait,_ please, let me fix—I shouldn’t have assumed _—“_

No response. Crowley continues, increasingly desperate, hands palm up as though to placate him. “Aziraphale, wait, _please._ ” It’s dark outside. Crowley shoves his sunglasses up on his head, cards his fingers through his hair. His fingers get caught on a tangle and he hisses at the sudden flare of pain, spreading through to his temples.

Aziraphale stops. He does not turn around, but a pathetic hope surges in Crowley’s heart anyway.

Crowley shuffles to just about arm’s length from the angel, but he doesn’t try to reach out. “Aziraphale, I’m sorry I said you had… Please turn around.” _Please sober up,_ Aziraphale had said, just a few minutes earlier _._ He winces at the thought. Aziraphale doesn’t turn around. “I know I’ve—what I said to you wasn’t fair, even drunk I never should’ve implied you’d discorporate me, I don’t know why I even thought of it, just, let me apologize—“

Crowley’s voice breaks and, perhaps in shock at the sound, Aziraphale turns around to face him. “I should’ve known, shouldn’t’ve told you to fuck off, I am _sorry_.”

Aziraphale still isn’t responding, but he’s very visibly still upset at Crowley, and in desperation—Crowley sees a sad little rose bush, _gonna take about a dozen bouquets to make that right,_ and plucks one flower out and thrusts it out to Aziraphale, babbling all the while because he is suddenly so, so scared Aziraphale will be mad enough to leave him alone like this, in the middle of all this turmoil, and he says, “Angel, please, I’m sorry I don’t—m’head hurts too much for a proper miracle like you deserve, or, or getting a proper bouquet—do you want a bouquet? Angel? Angel, please,” his voice breaks yet again, and he all but begs, “Aziraphale, please talk to me.”

He stops talking, the hand holding the flower shaking terribly. There are a handful of seconds where Crowley fervently wishes for the ground to swallow him whole. Aziraphale looks from the flower to his face and says, quietly, “Have you sobered up?”

It’s the most beautiful thing Crowley has ever heard in his life. “Yes!” The word punches itself out of him. He practically starts vibrating where he stands; as it is, he nods hard enough that his sunglasses fall back down over his eyes. His head throbs, but he ignores it. He uses his free hand to push it back up. “Yes, I‘ve sobered up, I just kept the headache—“

“Why would you do that?”

“Fff—“ Crowley clicks his tongue, leans back on his heels, brings the flower back closer to his chest. Aziraphale didn’t seem interested in it. It shouldn’t hurt, but Crowley is batting a thousand as far as moronic impulses go tonight, so it does. “—felt bad,” he admits. “I know you were excited, now, about the witch’s prophecy book, and then I was beastly to you—I—“

“Crowley, slow down,” says Aziraphale, sharply. Crowley’s mouth snaps shut with an audible click. Aziraphale sighs. “I said slow down, not stop entirely.”

“All right,” says Crowley, and he sucks in a deep breath. Hesitantly, he holds the flower back out to Aziraphale. In for a penny, in for a pathetic pound. “I’m sorry, Aziraphale. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions like that.” He says each word slowly. The sincerity of it stings, and Crowley wants to cave in on himself, but he powers through anyway, because an apology is the least Aziraphale deserves. Well, that and a sad little flower, apparently. Is this even a rose? Crowley revisits the thought of the ground cracking open and taking him in. “If. If you wanted, I could look for it. The witch's book. Not with you, of c—if you wouldn’t like that, but I’ve… I have people I can reach out to…”

Aziraphale doesn’t reply for a considerable amount of time. He surveys Crowley, taking in the wine-soaked shirt, the blazer hanging off one shoulder, the askew tie; the outstretched hand, the drooping petals of the offered flower. He says, voice distressingly calm: “You thought I had come to discorporate you.”

Again, he ignores the flower. Shit. Crowley’s never going to look at whatever-the-hell-plant-this-is the same way for the rest of eternity’s treacherous arc. “It was a ridiculous thought,” he says. “I was drunk, and I wanted to have something I could be angry about that I could… do something. About.” The golden medal for sentence construction award goes to Crowley! His face is flushed with embarrassment.

His damned arm is still holding up the flower. He starts to drop it again when Aziraphale takes a cautious, deliberate step toward him, and the movement surprises him so much he stops immediately.

Slowly, Aziraphale raises his hand to the flower. He takes it from where Crowley’s hold has gone slack with shock and hope, and he turns it around, just… just looking at it. Crowley is holding his breath. Crowley is about to lose his mind. Crowley is… watching Aziraphale give him a muted smile.

Aziraphale says, “Thank you for the flower.”

Crowley says, “Ahhgrhyyeaaahgk.”

It’s very intelligent. It’s mortifying. Crowley feels as though he is a giant gob of gelatin moulded in the approximate form of a demon. Has he just handed Aziraphale a wilting flower? Has Aziraphale just _accepted?_ Maybe he's drank enough to pass out. Crowley pinches his leg. No, he's still awake. He’s… he’s really just handed Aziraphale a flower. That is a thing he has done.

Crowley thinks, distantly, that he wants to scream.

“About your offer of help,” says Aziraphale, “I forgive you, and I will take you up on that offer. It’s gotten dark, however, and I’d like to work out the details… And we really should discuss what you thought more thoroughly…” He tugs gently at a petal, smooths it down. “What would you say to retiring to the bookshop for the evening? I believe I have something for that headache of yours.”

“Yes, yeah, sure,” says Crowley, like he hasn’t just had an internal crisis over Aziraphale accepting a bloody _flower_ from him. He completely ignores the fact that he can just banish the headache. “I don’t mind. Let’s go, then?”

He starts to offer his arm without thinking and falters halfway. Aziraphale gives him a _look_ that Crowley is still too thrown to decipher and carefully loops his arm with Crowley’s own, keeping the flower between them. The entire way to the bookshop the flower stays there, and when they arrive, Aziraphale carefully fills a mug with water and places it inside. It’s an awfully touching gesture.

They spend the rest of the night talking about the prophecy book and whether or not staging a heist would be justifiable. The whole time, when Crowley thinks Aziraphale is not looking, he steals glances of the flower. In the morning, free of his headache, he will be mortified to discover that _yes,_ it _is_ a rose, the red of it still vibrant even in its sad state, but for now he looks at it and basks in the reassurance that Aziraphale does not resent him for what he said.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope this is okay!! sorry for being late. happy holly jolly july!!


End file.
